Picture of the Week

Hurricane Irene is really messing things up.

Quotes

"Mike wasn't a guy that was in anybody's business, he wasn't in the locker room trying to [impose advice], but he was always there if somebody wanted to seek him out. He was such a source of wisdom for so many people, including me," said Orioles manager Buck Showalter about recently deceased Mike Flanagan.

"I'm excited to come out on the field every day. I'm excited to compete. ... My focus isn't on trying to continue the streak. My focus is on winning." -Dan Uggla on his hitting streak.

"Cam is an awesome dude. He's my brother, but we were separated at birth." -Mat Latos on Cameron Maybin.

I was rereading my outfield rankings for the 2012 season and, while I had a few players pegged perfectly, overall I’d missed the mark on many occasions. I wasn’t high enough on guys like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper (but who really saw two 20 and unders taking the league by storm?). I didn’t give Andrew McCutchen enough credit (I won’t make the same mistake this year). I was bullish on Justin Upton’s ascension, but he regressed instead. I was a mess.

Because there are so many outfielders, it’s tremendously difficult to calculate. In the following rankings, I’m sure some players near the bottom of my rankings will have career years, while some players near the top will have lamentable seasons. As a fantasy manager, you can’t project those occurrences. All you can do is look at track record (most recent stats being most important) and cross your fingers.

Even though I have Trout as my number two outfielder (and in a few weeks he’ll be ranked pretty highly in my top-100), you can’t expect him to have the same stats from last year. His peripherals suggest a decline, mainly in his power and batting average. Some super fanatics will suggest that Trout should be the number one outfielder off the board, but I’ll take the more projectable Ryan Braun in every draft.

This is supposed to be the year that Jason Heyward becomes “fantasy elite,” and he’s got a great chance to do it (he’s surrounded by outstanding talent). But Heyward still hasn’t shown that he can drive in runs consistently. I’d much rather have Adam Jones a round or two later.

I always struggle to come up with a good story line or metaphor for the third basemen. Last year I wrote about how I finally succumbed to the reality that Jose Bautista was actually a good player; and, of course, he got hurt. For two years I fought the Bautista bandwagon. But he finally broke me down. Like a player who is hitting on a pretty girl at a bar; his charm knocked down all my walls. And then, with one quick motion, he ripped my heart out, and as I stood there, looking at my heart leisurely beating on the bar, I knew it would happen like this. It couldn’t have ended any other way.

Thankfully, Jose is no longer a third baseman. So, I just wasted a paragraph, and three minutes of your precious time.

This is the first year that Miguel Cabrera will enter the season with third base eligibility since the 2009 season (depending on your eligibility rules). He wasn’t even on this list last year, as I refuse to rank players at a position who have yet to gain that eligibility. Gosh, I’m saying eligibility a lot. Cabrera is easily the best third baseman, and quite possibly the best player in Major League Baseball, depending on who you talk to. I’ve said for years, Miguel Cabrera is the key to a fantasy championship. Go ahead, try and argue against it.

I wrote extensively about how I dislike Chase Headley this year, only to end up with him in a 12-team keeper league this past weekend ($17 in an auction draft; got caught trying to raise the price on him. Truly thought he would go for much more). You can read about my reasoning by following the link on his name.

Like I said, I find it hard to come up with metaphors for these guys. So here are the rankings.

I was rereading my outfield rankings for the 2011 season and, while I had a few players pegged perfectly, overall I’d missed the mark on many occasions. I wasn’t high enough on Jacoby Ellsbury or Curtis Granderson (but who was?). I didn’t give Jose Bautista enough credit (I won’t make the same mistake this year). I was bullish on Carl Crawford moving to Boston. I fell in love with Jason Heyward. I was a mess.

Because there are so many outfielders, it’s tremendously difficult to calculate. In the following rankings, I’m sure some players near the bottom of my rankings will have career years, while some players near the top will have lamentable seasons. As a fantasy manager, you can’t project those occurrences. All you can do is look at track record (most recent stats being most important) and cross your fingers.

My inclination is to take stable outfielders. Those guys who don’t have terribly high ceilings, but their floor is well above sea level.

If the first basemen of 2012 are to be likened to current stars such as Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum, then the third basemen of 2012 might as well be Richard Grieco (Who?! Google him). Third base has guys who look sexy in jockstraps, have well known names, and have been ultra-productive in the past. But outside of Jose Bautista, none of the names on this list put up top-25 numbers in 2011. But there’s an underlying sense of optimism down at the hot corner. Veterans Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright, and Alex Rodriguez appear to be healthy and poised for rebound seasons. Kings of consistency, Michael Young and Aramis Ramirez, don’t appear to be fading any time soon. And youngster Brett Lawrie is threatening to be drafted in the fourth round of your draft (though he’s probably not worthy of a pick that high, yet).

In 2008, Jose Bautista was traded from the lowly Pittsburg Pirates to the lowly Toronto Blue Jays for Robinzon Diaz (currently with the Los Angeles Angels). Diaz isn’t a fantastic prospect, as he’s been inked to four different minor league deals in four seasons. Clearly, nearing the end of the 2008 season, the Pirates thought Bautista had reached his plateau, which at the time looked something like this: 75, 15, 50, 5, .240. He put up similar numbers with the Jays in the 2008 and 2009 seasons. With those 392 at bats he managed just 16 homeruns and a .232 BA. As a fantasy player, Bautista was irrelevant, if he ever even was relevant.

Since the 2009 season, no player’s stock has risen higher than appropriately nicknamed “Joey Bats”. In 2010, his year 29 season, he merely racked up 124 RBI and nearly hit more homers (54) than he had in his entire career to that point (59). To say Bautista’s 2010 value was Herculean would be an understatement. Going into the 2011 season, there were many skeptics, me being one of them, but he did it again: 43 HR and a .301 BA to go with it.

If you thought second base was shallow this year, take a look at third. There are about four studly men who I would employ to protect my hot corner and know for a fact they would earn their paychecks. Beyond that, there’s a bunch of guys with talent, but all of them, for one reason or another, find ways to poop the bed. Consider this: Adrian Beltre, Aramis Ramirez, Mark Reynolds, and Pablo Sandoval have all been considered top-five third basemen at some point in their careers, yet none of them have been consistent with their play on the field.